Jolly Ol' St. Nick, reprise

This is from last year's St. Nick's Day.

And this article from World Mag in 2005 has been bouncing around the Internet today. In it, Dr. Veith calls for incorporating the St. Nicholas slap into our Christmas traditions. I think that's a fantastic idea.

This will take a little tweaking of the mythology. Santa and his elves live at the North Pole where they compile a list of who is naughty, who is nice, and who is Nicean. On Christmas Eve, flying reindeer pull his sleigh full of gifts. And after he comes down the chimney, he will steal into the rooms of people dreaming of sugarplums who think they can do without Christ and slap them awake.

And we'll need new songs and TV specials ("Santa Claus Is Coming to Slap," "Deck the Apollinarian with Bats of Holly," "Frosty the Gnostic," "How the Arian Stole Christmas," "Rudolph the Red Knows Jesus").

Department store Santas should ask the children on their laps if they have been good, what they want for Christmas, and whether they understand the Two Natures of Christ. The Santas should also roam the shopping aisles, and if they hear any clerks wish their customers a mere "Happy Holiday," give them a slap.

This addition to his job description will keep Santa busy. Teachers who forbid the singing of religious Christmas carols—SLAP! Office managers who erect Holiday Trees—SLAP! Judges who outlaw manger displays—SLAP! People who give The Da Vinci Code as a Christmas present—SLAP! Ministers who cancel Sunday church services that fall on Christmas day—SLAP! SLAP!

Sorry, Chevy Fans

Hm, what to say about this:

When you deliberately eschew liturgy, you think ending prayers "boogity, boogity, boogity" is ok with Jesus?

Why not thank God for the Chevys? Toyotas but not Chevys? What's he got against the bowtie?

What has more advertisements? A Nascar car or a Nascar prayer?

Would he still give thanks if his wife were only smolderin' hot?

Eating like Kings

We generally eat very well in the Hemmer household. Today was the epitome of fine dining. It began with a breakfast of eggs over medium, covered with pepperjack cheese and served on spinach leaves, bacon, and toast with orange-ginger-pear honey.

Then dinner was flatiron steaks with balsamic reduction, made-from-scratch dinner rolls, and fresh-from-the-garden salad with strawberries.

Awesome.

Product Placement

During an emergency run for diapers this morning, I noticed the proximity of two items across the aisle from each other in Wal-Mart that brought to mind this song from 80s band The Fixx. Across from the rack of diapers is the rack of ladies' unmentionables. That's right, kids. One day you're shopping for pink and black thongs. The next it's diapers. One thing leads to another.

And the Winner is...

No, not of the Best Christmas Cookies in the World Contest. I got exactly one entry in that contest who told me, upon delivering the cookies, "I'm not entering your contest." So the title is up for grabs.

This is the winner of the "Best Prolife Commercial of the Superbowl." Man-bashing commercials abounded again this year as last. Yes, yes, we get it. Men are apish, self-interested, sex-and-food-crazed, and altogether fun to laugh at. Even as infants, they are quite infantile.

The pre-game controversy was over the Tim Tebow ad paid for by Focus on the Family. So, when the commercial came on, I perked up. Then what? Little Timmy almost didn't make it. Then he tackled his mom. And you needed to go to Focus's website to figure out what it's all about. Not a strong contender for best pro-life message unless you follow through and go watch the rest of the videos.

I thought Google's commercial was more pro-life at face value. Man meets woman, courts her, leaves his father and mother (at least his fatherland) to cleave to her, has baby, needs to assemble crib. An impressive link between marriage, sex, and babies.

Pr. Baker also notes the Dove for Dudes commercial has an implied "life begins at conception" message, as the guy's life begins when the sperm meet the egg. At first I thought the picture a little shocking, but it does imply a rather impressive, however unintended, pro-life message.

So, props to Dove and Google for bucking the anti-family, anti-life mentality of society. FotF? Not so much.

Driving Out of My League

There's a very new, very fast, very expensive car sitting in my driveway. There are lots of people who speculate what pastors should drive. Google it. I don't think a new BMW 535xi is on anyone's list, except maybe the prosperity gospel hucksters'.

The short story:

It's not mine.

The long story:

I have a bit of a soft spot for old German cars. I've never owned a new car and never even made a car payment. I've owned one car from the same decade in which it was made, and then only for the few remaining months of 1999. Owning cars that are half as old as I am (and older) has caused me to learn to do a fair amount of my own work on them, so I can drive something that's a bit higher mileage after someone else has taken the hit on most of the depreciation.

A couple years ago, I bought a then-12-year-old BMW 7-series. I wanted a V-8, rear wheel drive sedan (you know, something pastoral). If it were American-made, it would have helped me fit in better in Jerseyville, but American V-8 sedans are rare, and ones with different wheels for going forward and steering are rarer still. But the Germans came through. The good news is that two+ years and 35k miles later, the Kelly Blue Book Value is about the same as I paid for the car. The low price of these things used and the treasure trove of information collected on the Internet for just this model and year range of 7-series makes it the quintessential car for the casual do-it-yourselfer. Want to know how to troubleshoot the front suspension, reassemble the oil pump, or change the cabin air filters? It's all there.

While I can do a lot of my own service to the car, there are a handful of things I can't do, one of which is an alignment. That takes dealer skills and tools. So I took my now 14-year-old car to a dealer in St. Louis to get the alignment done. They promised me a loaner so I could run some errands while I was in St. Louis, and the car was supposed to be done in a couple hours. That was yesterday.

I have this fantasy that car manufacturers would find a need for a pastor--who is in his mind a race car driver, but who in his real life is just a pastor driving to visit his parishioners--to drive and review their cars. There are car blogs by moms, dads, teens, right-handed people, coffee drinkers, and people with multiple middle names. Why not a Lutheran pastor? Who wouldn't want to read that? Well, okay...everyone.

So there it is in my driveway, a nearly-new car, as a loaner for my it-would-be-new-in-Cuba car, a car worth eleven of my cars (seriously), a car that depreciates more than a dollar a mile. But man is it fun to drive. And when people see the guy in a clerical collar driving it, they must conclude I'm one of those fat-cat, synodical bureaucrats.

Jolly Ol' St. Nicholas?

Not if you deny the divinity of Jesus. Then St. Nick is less than jolly.

According to tradition, at the Council of Nicea, Nicholas, then Bishop of Myra, dealt with the heretic Arius by crossing the room and striking him in the face.

Nicholas was temporarily deposed as Bishop and jailed until the rest of the Council decided that sometimes heretics are best dealt with with a good, old-fashioned punch in the face. No, you're not free to believe about Jesus whatever you want, not if you value your salvation or your pretty-boy complexion.

First Annual Christmas Cookie Contest

It's that time of year again, time for what will easily become the tradition your family will cherish for years to come.

The First Annual Best Christmas Cookie in the World Contest

Contest is open to all readers of this blog, as well as anyone who makes great Christmas cookies. Each contestant should submit a dozen or so cookies to the author by Christmas morning. He will judge them and declare one cookie to be the Official Best Christmas Cookie in the World. In addition to world-wide acclaim and inevitable stardom, the winner will receive the privilege of having his or her recipe written down somewhere and will be offered the opportunity to bake the winning cookie for the author every year.

Because of the level of prestige associated with this award and what will eventually be the long-standing lofty reputation of the contest, contestants are encouraged to enter early and enter often.

Calling on Inactive Members

The term "inactive member" is really fictional, but then again, so is Pr. Lumberg.

Keeping the Linebacker in Christmas

Trick or Treat

Reformation Marquees

A Fun Picture

A clash of cultures? I took this picture at the Tour of Missouri. Those bikes the gentleman is looking at are featherlight machines, weighing in at well under 15 lbs, made by an American bicycle company, but ridden by a team of Italians. Does he suspect their retail price of each bike could push close to five figures? He doesn't care. He's just here to see a professional bike race in his hometown.

Write your own Dan Brown Bestseller

The folks at Slate have this brilliant Dan Brown sequel generator. You pick a city and a group to carry out the conspiracy and the program fills in the rest of the Dan Brown plot.

Dean at the Tour of Missouri

With Jens Voigt

The week of Trinity 9

Inspired by his own sermon, but only remembering the part about the servant who was "too weak to dig," Pastor Hemmer embarks on a week-long, patio-building staycation.

It still would have been a good name...

From today's Treasury:

Judges 3:31 After him was Shamgar the son of Anath, who killed 600 of the Philistines with an oxgoad, and he also saved Israel.

26.2

I did it. Barely.
I stopped running 3 weeks ago because of shin splints.
Then all Holy Week I had (still do) a very painful ear infection.

But while running, it was my lack of fitness, not the shin splints or ear infection (those were controlled with Advil, orthotics, and cortizone from the PT) that contributed to my slow, slow time. But I can't say what it is because then you'll figure out it was only 10 minutes faster than when my wife ran a marathon 2 years ago. Humbling.

Easter in the Octogon: Right Shape, Wrong Idea

The Post Dispatch had a front-page article today about Tom Skiles, pastor of (the appropriately-named) SOSChurch in St. Louis. The church began a month-long sermon series on Jesus the Ultimate Fighter on Easter. The story featured a picture of Tom and his wife constructing the chain-link octogon replica of a UFC arena.


Right shape, wrong idea.


An octogon is the correct shape for Easter, but not the octogon wherein you might get your face punched in. Worse. The octogon of Easter is where you'll get drowned to death: the Baptismal Font, traditionally 8-sided to confess that in Baptism is the beginning of the New Creation, the 8th day.


Here's the RFT's interview with Skiles.

Pictures